The five-driver dilemma facing Audi ahead of its F1 debut

Mattia Binotto is facing a looming choice at Audi as to who he will sign as the second driver alongside Nico Hulkenberg. 

The new chief operating and chief technical officer of Sauber Motorsport, Binotto has been left to decide who partners Hulkenberg after predecessor Andreas Seidl failed to fill the position. 

Outside of the Red Bull teams trying to make Sergio Perez, Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson fit into two seats, the Stake/Audi seat is the last one up for grabs. The previously-linked Lawson is set to be handed a Red Bull-backed drive next year, ruling him out.

RacingNews365 has reviewed five of the most realistic contenders for the seat alongside Hulkenberg, explaining the pros and cons of each potential option.

Valtteri Bottas

Bottas and Hulkenberg would prove to be one of the most experienced line-ups in grand prix history, with potentially 473 grand prix starts between them. 

For a team trying to develop its way forward from a low-starting base, experience is key for Audi, and with his five seasons at Mercedes, Bottas is the perfect fit to know how a world championship-winning team operates. 

He is also fast, and out-qualified statistically the greatest qualifier of all-time, Lewis Hamilton, at about a strike rate of once in every three races during the Mercedes years, never missing Q3.

However, what goes against Bottas is that during his time at Alfa Romeo/Stake, the car and team have not developed, and instead have declined. In the 43 races he has been classified since a seventh-place finish at the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix, he has an average finishing position of 14.7, scoring points just six times. 

Bottas's career might be considered akin to that of Rubens Barrichello, another driver who struggled for a few years after leaving a world championship-winning team after being team-mates with an all-time great. 

He does have something to offer Audi, but if he does not land the seat, Bottas will wave goodbye to F1 with only the Red Bull musical chairs left to sort.

Zhou Guanyu

The main tick for Zhou is the commercial strength he brings to a team, especially in the Chinese market.

F1 has long considered it a viable country to host a second grand prix, in the largest automotive market in the world. 

As scenes in the return to China showed earlier this year, there is an appetite for F1 in China with a Chinese driver, but Zhou has not done enough sportingly to deserve a seat. 

Granted, some of his problems have been down to the machinery under him, but even then, performances like Canada strike against him on a difficult weekend. 

He might land a role as a reserve driver or ambassador somewhere, but it is difficult to envisage Zhou in a full-time F1 drive come the start of 2025.

Theo Pourchaire

The 2025 Stake/Audi drive is Theo Pourchaire's last chance to make it into a full-time F1 seat.

Having been overlooked by Stake for 2024 as the reigning F2 champion, he was farmed out to Super Formula in Japan and made to sit on the sidelines again as no other team opted to pick him up. 

He is a driver who deserves a chance in F1 and was once tipped as the 'next best thing' but he took too long to win the F2 title in an era in which the likes of Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Oscar Piastri achieved in one year against strong fields.

Instead, it took Pourchaire three seasons to win the crown, eventually doing so against a comparatively weak field in 2023. 

A sojourn into IndyCar has been mixed after being messed around by McLaren's laissez-faire approach to driver contracts, but he still did bank a 10th place on the tough Detroit street track.

Mick Schumacher

Like Pourchaire, this seat represents Schumacher's last chance to race full-time in F1. 

If he does not get it, then Schumacher can consider his F1 career fully closed as he hangs onto it by the skin of his fingernails. 

He would have been overlooked by Mercedes, Williams, Alpine and then Stake, and booted from Haas, which represents 50% of the grid, which rises to 70% if the two Red Bull teams are included which tends to operate within its own eco-system of drivers.

Schumacher is a quick racing driver, and let us not forget won the Euro F3 and F2 titles so is no slouch, but the fact that Toto Wolff was trying to get him a seat elsewhere in F1 rather than placing his reserve driver in the vacant Hamilton-sized one should speak volumes.

Schumacher deserves a chance to show what he can do outside of the Haas environment that was never a good fit for him, but the chance is small.

Gabriel Bortoleto

With three rounds remaining in the F2 season, rookie Bortoleto is just 10.5 points behind leader Isack Hadjar, with a real possibility of going back-to-back in F2 and F3, which is what Leclerc, Russell and Piastri all achieved.

A strong rookie, Bortoleto is a consistent driver, who racks up the podiums, with the last win of his F3 title campaign coming in the Australian feature race - with only three finishes outside of the top 10 in the remainder of the year.

He is considered the next big thing in Brazilian motorsport, which has been without full-time representation in F1 since Felipe Massa retired in 2017. 

Against him is a lack of experience, at just 19 years of age in his first full F2 season, but he is also a McLaren junior. They might not agree to loan him to Stake/Audi.

Who do you think Audi and Binotto should sign as its second 2025 F1 driver? Let us know by voting in the poll and in the comments below!